Susana Mendoza

Susana A. Mendoza is an American politician.

At only 28, this made her the youngest member of the 92nd Illinois General Assembly.

Mendoza was Chairwoman of the International Trade and Commerce Committee, Vice-chairwoman of the Bio-Technology Committee and was a member of the Labor, Public Utilities and Railroad Industry committees of the House.

Mendoza served as co-chairwoman of the Conference of Women Legislators, and also co-founded the first Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus.

Mendoza was born in Chicago to Joaquin and Susana Mendoza, who had emigrated from Mexico in the 1960s.

The family moved from Chicago's Little Village neighborhood to Bolingbrook when she was a child due to the ongoing violence in Little Village.

Mendoza graduated from Bolingbrook High School in 1990 where she earned All‐State and All‐Midwest honors in varsity soccer.

She played for the soccer team from 1990 to 1994, redshirting during the 1993 season after suffering an injury in the first game.

In total, she scored 10 goals and recorded 10 assists in 68 appearances for Truman.

After college, Mendoza moved to Chicago and lived with her family for they had relocated back to their Little Village neighborhood.

It was at this time, while working a full-time job, that she became a local community organizer for her neighborhood and got involved in Chicago politics.

Mendoza became involved with Southwest Side Chicago politics in the mid-1990s.

She then attended Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri on a soccer and academic scholarship and graduating in 1994 with a B.A. in Business Administration.

As a young operative, she lost a 1998 bid for the Illinois House.

In 1998, Mendoza was slated by the regular Democratic Organization but lost to independent progressive incumbent Sonia Silva (1st Legislative District).

In 1999, she was invited to coordinate the aldermanic runoff campaign of Chicago First Ward incumbent Jesse Granato.

Granato had been forced into a runoff by progressive independent candidate Cynthia Soto.

Central to the mayor's aggressive development plans, the First Ward election was one of five hotly contested races in independent efforts to oppose the city's patronage political system.

Granato's chief support came from then-Mayor Richard M. Daley as well as the controversial Hispanic Democratic Organization and Coalition for Better Government.

Mendoza was first elected as State Representative in 2000 and served into her sixth term, when she won the election for City Clerk of Chicago in February 2011, becoming the first female city clerk.

In 2000, immediately after her victory for Granato and supported by Daley, the Hispanic Democratic Organization, and House Speaker Michael Madigan, Mendoza was slated and elected as an Illinois State Representative.

Mendoza served as an Illinois Democratic delegate in the primary elections for presidential candidates Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.

In 2002, she visited the African countries of Uganda and Tanzania as a delegate for the American Council of Young Political Leaders.

In June 2004, the State Department sent Mendoza to Brazil where she participated in a series of debates in which she represented the National Democratic Party's 2004 presidential platform.

Mendoza was the first woman elected City Clerk in Chicago.

Mendoza was a known critic of then Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's staff in 2007.

In 2008, Blagojevich blamed Mendoza, along with nine other Chicago Democrats, for lawmakers rejecting his capital bill; he also accused them of holding two taxpayer-paid jobs at once, being paid by the city or state at the same time as collecting salaries as state lawmakers.

Mendoza took an unpaid leave from her job as a project coordinator with Chicago when she went to Springfield for legislative business.

In her response to Blagojevich, Mendoza stated, "It is an obvious example that the governor is a pathological liar. If he honestly believes, in his lunacy, that 10 people from the City of Chicago controlled the fate of that doomed capital bill, he needs medical attention."

In 2011, shortly after being elected, she took charge of an office responsible for more than $100 million in annual revenue from vehicle stickers.

Mendoza spearheaded the Companion Animal and Consumer Protection Ordinance which banned Chicago pet stores from selling dogs, cats, or rabbits unless the animals are sourced from humane shelters or animal rescues.

She changed the city's once-a-year vehicle sticker sales to year-round sales, saving about $4 million a year.

She is the 10th comptroller of Illinois, serving since December 2016.

A member of the Democratic Party, she formerly served as Chicago city clerk and as an Illinois State Representative, representing the 1st District of Illinois.

She served in the position for five years until successfully running for the position of comptroller of Illinois in 2016.

Mendoza ran for Illinois Comptroller in the 2016 special election, defeating the Republican incumbent Leslie Munger by 5% of the votes cast.

Mendoza was elected during a special election to fill out the remaining two years of the term won by the late Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

Mendoza took office amid a two-year budget impasse between the Governor and the General Assembly.

In 2017, Politico named Mendoza to its national list of "18 to watch in 2018."

Mendoza ran unsuccessfully in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election.